Sunday, November 20, 2005
12:54 AM
He treats illnesses,
Saves and improves people's lives
With medical certs
(There is a reason
Why some people write haikus:
They suck at poems)
By and large, the main reason why people go to see the doctor is to get a legitimate excuse to not turn up for work. Of course doctors do get involved in inspiring life-saving or (positively) life-changing experiences a la ER every now and then; once in a blue moon for hospital specialists; but almost never for clinical general practitioners.
This makes for a very monotonous and cynical existence for a GP after some time. The GP I went to on Friday is an old doctor. My whole family goes to see him when we're ill, or in need of the 'golden ticket'.
Like a warrant officer, the first thing he'd do is to engage in some apparently innocent small talk, only to catch me saying something he deems a grave mistake. He spends the rest of the (up to) twenty minutes ranting about the seriousness of my misconception. And art, culture, science and politics.
All I said one time was 'I think I've caught a cold'.
First he expounded on the difference between a cold and flu, and about how it was impossible to catch a cold in Singapore as it was not a temperate country. Then when he found out I studied biology in JC, he criticised my school, my teachers, and the education system in general.
He told me that Singaporeans are not educated. The teachers here do not teach, and the things they teach here are all wrong. The only place where they teach the right things is at Cambridge, the only 'good' subject is natural science, where there is but one decent teacher: the teacher that taught his son natural science in Cambridge (of course).
I think he sincerely believed he was educating me, albeit in a very condescending way. And I would've argued further with him, for I did not agree with most of what he said. However, I remembered there and then, the purpose of my visit. As well as the purpose of the people outside the consultation room waiting to come in.
As I left for home with the golden ticket safely tucked in my wallet, I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for that old doctor. For all the glamour and social status that society promises to bestow upon a doctor, the vocation is just another 'low-class' transaction of sorts for a living; my money for your medical certificate. (I suppose being a specialist doctor would be slightly better; my money for your downgrade certification)
It seems to me that making people realise how 'uneducated' they are, and then attempting to 'cure' them of their ignorance, on top their physical illnesses, is his way of dealing with the disillusionment of the pragmatic realities of being a GP. It reassures him of his social status.
Well, having said all that, I guess I can't say that I have anything against that old doctor. He could have been much worse, and much more dangerous. And in the end, it takes two to tango; I'm also guilty of being a pragmatic, task-oriented MC-seeker (it's the army, the army I say).
It's just that, I start to worry about some of the doctors-to-be friends that I have.
Comments:
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3 comment)
Oei! Oei! Oei! Oei! Oei! Anyway- want to be TaiTai ... Hmph!
Hahaha!
To tell the truth- docs dun have so much time to talk to their patients- the old doc is an exception... Statistics reveal that docs only speak to patients- avg less than 1 min
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Hahaha!
To tell the truth- docs dun have so much time to talk to their patients- the old doc is an exception... Statistics reveal that docs only speak to patients- avg less than 1 min
